Kyle Moore
Republican mayoral candidate Kyle Moore blasted two-term Mayor John Spring’s assertion that the Quincy job market is improving.
“If you look at the facts, in December 2005, our unemployment rate in the city of Quincy was 4.2 percent,” Moore said. “Our number of unemployed was 916 people. In December of 2012, the city of Quincy has a 6.6 percent unemployment rate with over 1,400 people unemployed.”
Moore made the comments after Spring gave his “state of the city” address to the Quincy Exchange Club.
During his speech, Spring touted that Adams County has the second-lowest unemployment in the state after Brown County. Still, he said the city needs to focus on bringing head-of-household jobs to the area.
“When you look at the fact that under his leadership, our average family income has decreased in the city of Quincy by 14 percent,” Moore said. “We’re not even keeping up with the state average. We’re not moving forward; we’re moving backwards.”
Moore admitted part of the rise of unemployment and decline in income stems from the worldwide recession — as it has been nationwide — but he claims Quincy is doing worse than the Illinois state average of 12 percent income decline over the same period.
“The state of Illinois isn’t known for its good economic sense,” he said. Moore said the city needs to work on creating an environment that allows head-of-household job creation, although he has not laid out specifics plans for making that happen.
